frightfiction Chapter 314 Beggar's Chicken, Stewed Flying Dragon
Chapter 314 Beggar's Chicken, Stewed Flying Dragon
Song Desheng was still unconvinced, but he managed to save face for himself. He wasn't angry and shamelessly said, "We just saw that the weather was getting hot in the late summer, so we were fanning Feilong to cool him down. What, it's okay for Brother Li to have his fan on, but not for Feilong?"
The group burst into laughter as Big Tiger leaped out of the bushes.
The tiger, who had just suffered a setback, was now growling at the flying dragon, as if trying to regain its pride.
Li Ju'an, fearing the hunting dogs would tear the dragon meat apart, shouted, "Big Tiger, come back!"
He slowly bent down and picked up the unfortunate dragon from the ground. The bird's head had been punched through, and it was clearly dead; the last glimmer of light in its eyes had faded. He resolutely tied it up with thin hemp rope, and with a flick of his arm, the dragon slid into the bamboo basket on his back.
The group strolled slowly around the woods, their eyes sharp as eagles, pausing occasionally to aim and fire with clean, swift movements. Soon, they added two more pheasants with vibrant plumage and a rather endearing, simple-minded dog. Several prey were now in their possession. As dusk fell, they finally found a hunter's abandoned hut and decided to rest there for the night.
The day's harvest was plentiful and exhilarating. Li Ju'an carried three pheasants on his shoulder, his steps steady. Old Qian carried one pheasant and two pheasants, a satisfied smile on his face. Old Zhang was not to be outdone, carrying a half-pound chicken and another pheasant, his steps tinged with pride.
The four men sat around the threshold of the hunter's hut, gathering firewood. The campfire leaped in the night, illuminating their tired but content faces.
Night fell over the mountains and forests. Outside the hut, the shadows of the mountains loomed, and the occasional low growl of a nocturnal beast added to the wild atmosphere. In the flickering firelight, their laughter mingled with the leaping flames of the campfire; the night air was considerably cooler than the daytime temperature.
Five flying dragons were laid out in front of Li Ju'an, with two brightly colored pheasants lying beside them, and a silly-looking dog named Sha Banjin. Even Lao Qian, who had spent most of his life traversing the mountains and forests, couldn't help but grin when he saw so much flying dragon meat. His eyes crinkled with laughter, and he exclaimed, "I've lived most of my life, and this is the first time we've ever seen so many flying dragons."
Li Ju'an carefully searched the surroundings and found two stones of just the right size, placing them on the firewood. At the same time, Old Zhang pulled a pot out of his bulging cloth bag. This little thing was a small iron pot he had specially prepared for his mountain runs; the pot was black and shiny. He laughed and said, "Hey, these two stones probably can't support my deep pot."
Upon hearing this, Song Desheng joined the search for stones. The stones were hard to find, so Song Desheng searched around and found two more near the roots of a large tree. He breathed on the hot firelight and stacked the two flat stones on top of each other, saying, "Brother Li, let's take these four stones back tomorrow morning after the fire goes out. Otherwise, walking so far to find stones every day is exhausting."
"That's fine."
Li Ju'an had hunted a flying dragon, but hadn't yet tasted flying dragon soup in the wild. The group sat together, discussing it in hushed tones.
"The meat of the flying dragon is neither suitable for stir-frying nor for steaming or boiling; it is best suited for stewing soup."
"We've been traveling all day, let's have a bowl of dragon soup. It's piping hot and smells so good."
"Drink! It's not easy for us to come into the mountains. We can't spend a year or two hunting in the mountains without ever having tasted a sip of Flying Dragon Soup, can we?"
A hearty meal is essential to replenish their strength for the hunt. The four men, brimming with ambition, vowed that after drinking this bowl of wyvern soup, they would definitely hunt tiger meat the next day. You see, most hunters who roam the mountains would sell their wyverns to supplement their income. So, hunters had handled many wyverns, but they couldn't really describe the taste of wyvern meat. None of them had ever tasted wyvern in the wild.
Li Ju'an shouted heartily, "Come on! Let's boil some water and pluck the feathers!"
Old Zhang took out his own pot and placed it on a rock. Old Qian used his empty deer blood wine jug to run to a large rock in the nearby stream and scooped up some spring water flowing down from it. The spring water in the Xing'an Mountains had a sweet taste and a very refreshing feel, unlike well water or the taste of tap water in the city after boiling.
After the water boiled, several people shoveled the pheasant with its neck cut into the boiling water, then blanched it and plucked its feathers. The skin was easier to pluck once it was scalded. Song Desheng could tell from the New Year's work that he had done a lot of work, and he quickly plucked the pheasant's feathers clean. He shouted, "One isn't enough, let's have a pheasant too."
Old Qian's eyes widened as he watched the young man's reckless eating. With a dry cornbread still in his mouth, he shouted, "Killing a chicken? We won't have anything to sell in the market later!"
Song Desheng laughed heartily and said, "You need to be well-fed to work properly. We're not short of food."
Old Qian rolled his eyes, widened his gaze, and stared at him with displeasure and disapproval. If it were any other hunter's child, such as Lu Zhiqiang or Sun Weimin, they would probably have obediently listened to the old hunter, followed the hunting methods passed down from their ancestors, and brought all the game they caught back to the village to sell.
Just like the women in the village, who diligently raised chickens in their backyards, every egg laid by the hens was considered a treasure. Once they had accumulated a basketful, they would exchange it for cotton cloth or soft cotton wadding, but they themselves would not be willing to eat a single one.
However, Song Desheng was a city boy. He was not intimidated by Lao Qian's sharp, knife-like gaze. He just muttered to himself and kept moving his hands. He even carefully burned the pheasant's feathers, plucked them clean, and then smeared a large amount of wet mud on it to form a thick, hard shell.
He shouted, "Beggar's Chicken! Watch closely, it'll be delicious roasted!" He placed the thick mud in the fire to bake. Before long, the moist mud was baked into a hard, dark brown shell. After baking for a while longer, the aroma of tender pheasant meat wafted from the cracked shell.
Several people around the campfire were drooling as they smelled the meaty aroma of beggar's chicken.
Old Qian had been glaring at him fiercely, clearly displeased. The grouse meat in the pot was cooked through, steaming hot bubbles rising to the surface, carrying an irresistible, delicious aroma that stubbornly wafted into his nostrils. The so-called "dragon meat" actually referred to this forest delicacy, the grouse; there's a saying among the people: "Dragon meat in the sky, donkey meat on the ground."
The aroma of the perfectly stewed dragon meat soup filled the air, and even though Old Qian was unwilling, he couldn't care less at this moment. His gaze was firmly drawn to the pot of dragon meat soup, his eyes fixed on it, and he unconsciously swallowed.